CAPE FEAR

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.
– President Franklin Delano Roosevelt

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, acting on intelligence that Secretary Tom Ridge called alarmingly specific, has raised the national Terror Alert Warning to Orange. This comes with the claim that a cache of recently obtained information — including photos, drawings and written documents — indicates that al-Qaida operatives have undertaken meticulous preparations to case five specific buildings: The Citigroup Center building and the New York Stock Exchange in New York, the International Monetary Fund and World Bank buildings in Washington, DC, and Prudential Financial Inc.’s headquarters in Newark, NJ.

Despite the supposed specificity of these warnings, Secretary Ridge said officials could not tell whether an attack might be imminent and he encouraged people to go about their business.

Here in New York police were banning trucks, starting Monday, from the Manhattan-bound side of the Williamsburg Bridge, which connects Brooklyn and lower Manhattan. Commercial vehicles also were banned from the inbound side of the Holland Tunnel from New Jersey. Motorists are instead being told to use the Lincoln Tunnel and the George Washington Bridge. This redirection of thousands of vehicles will continue for the foreseeable future.

Officials have warned that the al-Qaida network, blamed for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, may launch a large-scale assault in hopes of disrupting the Nov. 2 elections and demonstrating that it remains capable of offensive actions despite international efforts to combat terrorism.

These recent warnings stem in large part from Pakistan’s capture of an al-Qaida operative several weeks ago, a U.S. counterterrorism official said, speaking only anonymously. Officials would not identify the operative.

That detention led to the discovery of the documentary information about the extensive surveillance of the five buildings, the counterterrorism official said. The official said the scouting was going on before and after Sept. 11, 2001, but it’s unclear how recently.

Ok, several things bother me about this latest �report.�

For starters, if this threat is as specific as Ridge claims, then why are people being encouraged to continue on as usual? Isn�t that putting people in harm�s way? And don�t talk to me about �the terrorists will win� or some other nonsense. If the threat is real, and a bomb goes off, don�t they have a duty to prevent massive loss of life by giving us proper direction and guidance? Shouldn�t we be told not to go to work? If the threat is not real, why are we getting so alarmed? This seems to be a major contradiction.

Second, they seem to be acting on plans that may have been in the works pre-9/11. By their own admission, they don�t know how recently these sketches and diagrams were prepared. If these are new photos, drawings and written documents, doesn�t this call into question how effective our intelligence and surveillance is of terrorist cells possibly still operating in this country? Why haven�t we caught people who might still be in the country post-9/11 and planning further acts? What has �Homeland Security� been doing all this time? If these are old documents, then do we really need to be worried?

Third, law enforcement seems to be acting on the assumption terrorists will use a truck or car bomb, as they did during the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993. If history and intelligence reports have taught us anything, it is that al-Qaida changes up its strategies all the time, rarely using the same method twice. To stop and search commercial trucking entering New York City simply invites them to use another method.

Announcing that certain routes into the city will be blocked off assumes the terrorists won�t take the alternate routes that everyone else is taking. Don�t they think terrorists listen to radio traffic reports?

And someone please tell me, just what does a terrorist look like anyway? Are police going to �profile� all Middle Eastern people (or simply all brown-skinned people), presuming that a terrorist will look straight out of Central Casting? Maybe they�ll even have scars on their cheeks and snarl when they speak, just like in the movies. Oklahoma City was hit by White guys with crewcuts, remember? Are they going to get stopped and frisked too?

While a heavy police presence is being felt downtown, I noticed a profound absence of cops uptown in Harlem where I live. Are Black and Latin lives not worth protecting? Or are White sections of town simply more deserving of terrorist attack?

If the terrorist alert were ever lowered to green, wouldn�t that be the perfect time for a terrorist group to attack? Isn�t there then a built-in reason to never lower it, thus keeping America in a constant state of fear?

Why doesn�t the mainstream media ever ask the Bush administration these questions? Today�s newspapers were covered with screaming headlines guaranteed to alarm, as well as sell out quickly. Government threat pronouncements are taken verbatim with little follow-up or probing for veracity.

Finally, wouldn�t al-Qaida be less of a threat today if we had targeted them�the real culprits behind 9/11�instead of going off invading Iraq? Why is Osama bin Laden still at large, while 800 American soldiers have died needlessly in Iraq?

The purpose for this terror alert is quite clear. It will no doubt remain in effect through the GOP convention here in early September, causing major disruptions for New Yorkers every day, costing the city millions of dollars that could otherwise be better spent on a multitude of city needs.

Americans will only begin to feel safer when our government stops using fear to control its citizens and stops misleading the public with these false images of strength and supposed protection. We must begin the process of creating a safer world by putting a new president in the White House in November.